Ruth First

Ruth First (4 May 1925-17 August 1982) was a South African Communist Party (SACP) member and anti-apartheid activist. The wife of Joe Slovo, First and her husband were major leaders of the revolution against the racist South African government, and she was assassianted by a parcel bomb in Mozambique in 1982.

Biography
Ruth First was born on 4 May 1925 in Johannesburg, South Africa to Jewish parents from Latvia. Her parents were founding members of the South African Communist Party, and she was one of the founders of the Federation of Progressive Students at the University of the Witwatersand. She met African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela and FRELIMO leader Eduardo Mondlane during her days as a student leader, and her position was boosted after many SACP leaders were arrested due to the 1946 mining strikes. In 1955, she became the editor of an underground radical newspaper after the SACP was banned, and she was active in the extensive riots of the 1950s. In March 1964, she went into exile in London, United Kingdom after the Treason Trial and other legal issues, and she became an anti-apartheid activist overseas. In November 1978, she moved to Mozambique as director of the research training program at the Eduardo Mondlane University, living in Maputo. On 17 August 1982, she was killed by a parcel bomb mailed to her house by Major Craig Williamson of the South African police in a political assassination.